Aesthetics of diaspora: Contemporary minstrels in Turkish Berlin

Abstract

The process of identity formation of the Turkish hip-hop youth in Berlin is a constant negotiation between past and future, 'roots' and 'routes', local and global, home and diaspora. German-Turkish youth in general are socially conscious and critical of the increasing discrimination, segregation, exclusion and racism in society. These new syncretic forms of expressive minority youth cultures expose a social movement of urban youth that already has a distinct political ideology. Some of the Turkish rappers in Berlin take a significant position within these new social movements as the spokespeople (contemporary minstrels and/or storytellers) of their communities. These rap groups have eventually played a vital role in developing an anti-racist struggle by communicating information, organising the collective consciousness and testing out, deploying, or amplifying the forms of subjectivity within the Turkish diaspora. Accordingly, this article attempts to explore the forms of expressive culture which the Berlin-Turkish hip-hop youths have constructed as a reaction to the structural outsiderism and exclusion, and demonstrates their construction of a double diasporic cultural identity.